“Not all of these stories are for the faint of heart,” reads the prologue for this short tome comprising, as the title says, as a collection of short stories and poems. Whoever wrote the preface (as none of the pieces reveal who the individual author is) was being coy to say the least. All of them- including the poems – have an element of supernatural and a bit of gore.

The collection begins with a very short story entitled “Car Crash,” in which the protagonist – a college professor – mourns the death of his wife, who lost her life in the hands of a drunk driver. Completely overwhelmed by grief, he drives to the same intersection where the original accident happens and ends up encountering the same fate. “He fully understood the pain his love had felt,” as the story comes to a close. “With his final breath, the man wept.”

The poems strategically placed are also less than uplifting. Take for instance, “Death”

‘Tick tock, tick tock

Went the old grandfather clock

He knew his life was ticking away

Faster than the average day

In some ways it was good,

Now he was finished with his dreadful adulthood.

The entire collection – which can be read as quickly as in three hours, is of a disturbing nature. What is the purpose of the authors, except maybe to make a bad day worse? The fact that is was published outside the US (and made available as a low-cost e-book by Amazon.com) makes you wonder about the market for horror stories an poems.

Don’t get me wrong. I actually found the book quite enjoyable, but I do have some interests on stories that go against the grain, sometimes going out of my way to avoid best-sellers (at least when everyone is talking about them). I recall being on the R train at the time Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code was all the rage and noticing that at least half the people in the car were holding a copy. Though I had been gifted a copy by my younger sister, I refused to crack it altogether – it sat on my bookshelf for years until I finally decided to donate several books to friends as my move to a new home approached.

Would I recommend this book? The answer would be yes, since it is a nice way to spend a few hours distracting yourself from the current real-life horror story unfolding before our very eyes. But I would certainly not call this literary gold.